13.1.05

Corpse Meditation

The grim task of cremating thousands of tsunami victims has fallen to Thailand's saffron-robed monks, whose training requires them to stare at photos of decomposing bodies to better understand the transitory nature of life.

Buddhist monks performing rites, cremations and after-death chants to chase away what they believe to be lingering ghosts also were working hard.Years of special "corpse meditation" have helped each monk, or "bhikkhu," deal with the nightmarish tasks. "Corpse contemplation, or corpse meditation, would be just literally [meditating on] a picture of a dead body, or a body at one of the actual stages of decomposition," said Siripanyo Bhikkhu.